Kilo Kish’s AMERICAN GURL: Having a Laugh at the American Dream

Kilo Kish came up with an impressive cohort - acts who have launched into mainstream recognition and helped define the evolution of hip hop through the 2010s. Today, Syd is getting featured by ex-One Directioners. Earl Sweatshirt emerged from his cave in 2018 to release a series of experimental albums and be interviewed by law professor Cheryl I. Harris (his mom). Vince Staples almost laughed saying the line in a Sprite commercial. Childish Gambino is one of the three modern rappers white people know. Because of her comparatively smaller discography, one might be tempted to believe Kish has fallen behind her peers - AMERICAN GURL marks Kilo Kish’s second studio album released under her imprint Kisha Soundscape + Audio, six years after her previous effort, Reflections in Real Time.

But, it's exactly that idea that fame determines an artist's value that Kish takes aim at in her latest project. Reflections is like a valedictorian's senior project. AMERICAN GURL is like a brick through the school window. With tongue in cheek and jorts on waist, it deconstructs the very concept of a unified American identity and the hierarchy it imposes.

(Photograph by Alice Moitié.)

Kish's early music might be classified as alternative R&B. Its rhyme schemes were conveyed through soft, laid-back vocal performances atop instrumentals that blend soul and light electronics produced by The Internet's Matt Martians. It was a style rooted in hip hop, but geared toward a new age. Unlike many of her cohort, in the career she's forged for herself she’s remained independent, leaned more into synth pop since partnering with producer Ray Brady, and taken a methodical, infrequent approach to album releases.

Kilo Kish has been signaling a desire to broaden her horizons, drawing inspiration from "the MTV era" of the 1990s and 2000s. The list of artists she shared to Instagram represents a wide range of regions and aesthetics, but each shares a tendency to strive beyond their respective genres. Bjork’s dalliance with the absurd while at the top of her career, Outkast’s chaotic experiments with rock elements on Stankonia, the addition of a keyboardist and turntablist to Deftones’ alternative metal lineup: Each of these artists were at a point where they were breaking new ground for themselves as well as their place in popular culture.

The graphic cover art for "AMERICAN GURL" (the lead single) is composed of paper cutouts of landmarks, price tags lapped over one another, Kilo Kish in an entirely denim outfit, all placed atop a bright red background layer. This design concept carries across all the album's visuals. Kish dressed in cowboy boots, jean shorts, bright, striking dresses, accompanied by city skylines, waterfalls, alligators, presidential monuments, and muscle cars. The song itself leans fully into a new wave aesthetic. Its synths have a haunting quality, with reverb heavy drums, and Kish singing about her disillusionment with the idea of success in a cool, disaffected tone. It's a far cry from the hip hop oriented delivery of her debut, and as direct a thesis for the album as can be.

But, as evidenced by the anachronistic collage work, the album is just as much parodical as it is cynical. The second single, “BLOODY FUTURE,” extends the joke toward pastiche, turning a critical eye toward the use of entertainment to placate audiences. It’s led by a clip of a crackling, Old Hollywood monologue and a melody that would be fit for a WB monster picture if it weren't run through a row of synths. In the deadpan chorus, Kish mocks the pride people take in generational identities:

We were living in the eighties /

Everybody going crazy /

We were living in the nineties /

Dot com, do you wanna find me? /

We were even in the O's /

But in the song's verses, she sings of climate apocalypse boiling to the surface. The music video, captioned “2061 FAIRYTALE” depicts Kish, entertaining herself with a robot companion on a small farm, all the while her health and crops are failing.

What few guest artists are present mostly provide backing performances. For example, "DEATH FANTASY" is a somber, ethereal piece bathed in background vocals from Miguel, while "NEW TRICKS: ART, AESTHETICS, AND MONEY" has Vince Staples’s adlibs echoing over guttural electronic melodies.

Kilo Kish began work on AMERICAN GURL in 2019, saying in a livestream Q&A that the majority of the songs were recorded that year. However, it was derailed: of course, (say the line, Bart!), by the pandemic, but also a contractual obligation to first release the 2019 EP REDUX, touring, and creative collaborator Justin Scott’s untimely passing. Scott, her manager and producer, is grieved on the song "ON THE OUTSIDE (JUSTIN'S SONG)".

Luckily, what Kish and Brady had on their hands was something that could survive the wait. Their devotion to the album can be heard in the synergy it generates between its themes and sound. It's easy to understand the ideas and hard to put down. If the reflective ballroom dress wasn’t enough to grab your attention, know that Kilo Kish isn’t an artist to be overlooked. We're only in the first half of the year, but I'm fully confident about placing AMERICAN GURL in the Top 10 Albums of 2022.

[Erick Zepeda is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. More of his work can be found at https://erickalexanderzepeda.wordpress.com/]